There’s an ostensibly equal degree of pro-and-con when it comes to the two major media formats for video games. Cartridges are sturdier, yet CDs are cheaper to produce. Cartridges may last longer, but CDs, Saturn and Sega CD behemoths aside, are far easier to store. Cartridges have a more satisfying weight to them, though CDs are usually presented with greater style. And so on.

However, there remains one field in which carts claim undisputed superiority over CDs: bootlegs. Anyone can burn a disc and slap it into packaging from a low-end printer, but there’s an intriguing artistry that surrounds black market games for cartridge systems. Odd casings are often used, labels can get downright bizarre, and the titles within might be straight copies of popular games, puzzling clones, or perhaps even a shoddily programmed 8-bit Sonic the Hedgehog with main characters from the NES version of Contra.

Yes, bootleg cartridges are an interesting field of study, and this might explain why I’m so fascinated with something I recently snagged off of eBay.

First, however, some brief history is required. Fans of Genesis shooters undoubtedly recall a decent 1991 release (with not-so-decent cover art) called Trouble Shooter. It was known as Battle Mania in its native Japan, where it received a sequel, Battle Mania Daiginjoh, on the Mega Drive (the Japanese Genesis) in 1993. Dubbed Battle Mania 2 in the west, this import-only sequel remains one of the rarer Mega Drive games, clearing the hundred-dollar mark under most circumstances.

Since I liked Trouble Shooter more than it may have deserved, owning Battle Mania 2 has long been a pipe dream of mine. Several months ago, I had just watched a copy of the game sell for $150 on eBay when I noticed that someone had a cartridge, pictured below, up for auction under the title “Battle Mania 2.”

As one might guess, the cartridge looks nothing like the Japanese version of Battle Mania 2, shown below.

But my curiosity was roused. Was this really a bootleg of an obscure Mega Drive game? Or was someone just passing off another Sonic hack under a label that bore Battle Mania 2 screen captures? I had to find out, and buying it proved the easiest way to get more information. Fortunately, no one was as interested as I, and I landed the game, shipping and all, for about nine bucks.

Once I had the cartridge in my hands, I lost all doubt of its status as a bootleg. The casing is a glued-together Genesis cart that’s missing the screws on the back, and the label consists of two screen captures of the game on a muddled orange, black, and white background, with “BATTLE MANIA II” printed at the top in barely readable letters. And why is there a sharp-edged notch cut into the side of cartridge? Japanese Mega Drive games have similar slots, but they also have connector ports that are shaped differently from American Genesis games, so this particular Battle Mania 2 wouldn’t fit a Japanese system.

Still, what’s inside the game isn't perplexing at all, as I found when I popped it into my Genesis. The cartridge contains the complete Japanese version of Battle Mania Daiginjoh, and a check with an ill-gotten ROM proved that the suspicious game was nearly identical to the Japanese release. The only discrepancy is some flicker on the main character sprites in the bootleg version. Other than that, it's the same game, as seen in these screen captures. Try and spot the two that were obviously used for the label.

Not really trusting my limited experience with bootlegs, I decided to get other opinions. I showed the game to a computer-savvy friend, who examined it and declared that someone with a ROM burner had probably duplicated the Battle Mania Daiginjoh programming on a circuit board and slapped it into a cartridge. I also brought it to a knowledgeable EB Games clerk named Ronnie. The following conversation ensued.

Me: I bought this on eBay. Do you think it’s a—
Ronnie: This is so fake.

Finally, I e-mailed the seller from the game’s auction and asked him where the game came from. His reply was this:

“I got the game (and about 20-25 other games) some time ago from a guy who used to work for Vic Tokai. I'm not in contact with him anymore, so I don't know much about the background of the cartridge. As far as I can tell, it's the Japanese game on a cartridge designed for American systems. Whether it's some kind of prototype or not, I don't know.”

Though the prospect of owning a prototype is interesting, I doubt that this cartridge could have been produced by Vic Tokai or any other licensed company. Prototypes seldom have decorative labels, and the game simply looked too new when I received it. If it were a proto, it would have been manufactured before 1995; this thing looks like it was made a week ago. Of course, the seller’s story isn’t necessarily untrue. He may have indeed acquired the game from a former Vic Tokai employee, and thus wouldn’t know much about its history. I’m not inclined to press him about his reply, since he seems like a decent fellow and the other auctions I could find in his name didn’t feature any games of dubious origin.

Instead, I’m curious as to why someone would make this. It is just another bootleg from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Brazil, or some other haven for gray-market games? Did an anonymous charlatan create this in the hope that an uncommonly gullible buyer would mistake it for the real thing? In the latter case, I doubt that anyone who knew the value of Battle Mania 2 would ever pay high prices for such an obvious fake, and the eBay seller started the bidding at five bucks and sold it for less than ten. That’s hardly a grand swindle.

Perhaps this is someone’s pet project. It could be that some enterprising programmer made it as a gift for a friend who didn’t have access to the emulators and online ROM repositories that make it fairly easy to play even the rarest of games. Maybe I’m in possession of some one-of-a-kind gaming oddity. Or maybe someone will read this diatribe and tell me that they’ve seen these cartridges all over Hong Kong marketplaces.

Oh well. Even if I’m working myself into some analytical fervor over a cheap copy of an obscure title, it’s at least a fun one. Battle Mania 2 is precisely what a sequel should be, taking the basic Forgotten-Worlds-meets-Dirty-Pair concepts of the original Battle Mania and improving everything exponentially. Like its predecessor, Battle Mania 2 isn’t very difficult, but it’s still an enjoyable and graphically impressive shooter that I’ll have to cover in greater depth later on.

For the moment, though, I’ll just look at that puzzling Battle Mania 2 knock-off on my shelf and ponder the most basic of existential questions: Where the hell did this come from? I'll follow it with that second most basic one: What the hell is wrong with me?